


Alpha Time Traveller

by TheEvangelion



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alpha Lena Luthor, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anniversaries, Endgame Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, F/F, Falling In Love, First Time, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Non-Canonical Character Death, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Kara Danvers, One Shot, Pregnancy, Rough Sex, Time Travel, Vigilante Lena Luthor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 19:42:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16204346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEvangelion/pseuds/TheEvangelion
Summary: Omega Kara, National City's favourite superhero, and Alpha Lena, a time-travelling vigilante, fall in love and live a wonderful life together. Lena eventually has to provide comfort after a deeply profound loss… she justnevercould have anticipated what that loss would be. (TW: Will hit you hard in the guts.)





	Alpha Time Traveller

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill: ABO Supercorp/Pregnant Kara/Comfort after a profound loss
> 
>  
> 
> _Paradox - Hans Zimmer_

_THE SECOND TIME THEY MET:_

 

 _If only she could go back in time._ Kara had dwelled on that thought more than once. The wrong coffee placed on Cat’s desk, only discovered once all hell had already broken loose. The parking fine dolled out six minutes past the hour that left her wincing and doing the mental-arithmetic right there on the sidewalk of where she would stump up the money. The accidental slip of her tongue—usually during her heat—that led to her saying something she most often really, really, really didn’t mean to say aloud. Here, now, wholeheartedly, guttingly, she felt the sensation of wanting to turn back time climb up her throat with an intensity never felt before. She stared down into the pitch-darkness from over the side of the water tower, mouth wrenched open in horror, her shaking fist tight around Alex’s ankle, unable to comprehend the pounding smash of Winn’s body no doubt hitting the cement.

“Winn!” Alex screamed her voice hoarse, swinging in the air by the ankle. “It was Winn! He was the one you were supposed to save!” She wasted no time punishing Kara with a blood-curdling scream that left the air cold.

If she could go back in time, perhaps she could figure out a way to save them both. It all happened so fast. Through a monitor that was attached to a drone hovering in the air, the Toymaker gave her the choice between saving her sister or Winn, and, then, without warning, the trap doors on the tower platform dropped open instantly. There was no time to decide or think of a plan, only her raw instinct to lunge and grab one of them. Kara felt the first wave of the aftermath of that decision wrack her insides into a frantic state of nausea as Alex’s wails into the static, silent air rang on.

“Guys!” A familiar voice from below hollered up, “It’s okay! I—er, well—I had a soft landing!” Winn shouted.

Kara flew down so fast the wind made her eyes dry. There, dishevelled and thankfully in one piece, Winn clambered off what looked like a gigantic bounce house. Kara breathed a sigh of relief that left her empty and drawing a blank, utterly unsure on how any of this was possible.

“Winn!” Alex exhaled and jumped out of Kara’s arms as he rolled down the edge of the inflatable cushion.

Alex ran so hard that Kara wasn’t entirely sure whether the pounding noise she could hear in her ears were footsteps or the racing of her own heart. All she could do was stand there dumbly. A hand settled softly on the back of her arm, startling her. Kara turned around and looked the woman responsible up and down. Friend or foe, she couldn’t be sure. Maybe neither. If her city clothes were anything to go by, she was probably a passerby who saw the commotion out of the car window on her way home. An Alpha who smelled a helpless Omega in danger and came scurrying over to be the knight in shining armour, the thought already made Kara angry. The woman in front of her looked like she had just came from the office, slinky pencil skirt and black high heels to boot.

“Do you know how much money it costs to rent a stunt cushion? Go on, guess?” The woman beamed a pleased red-lipstick smile. It quickly faltered and pulled downwards at the corners, and she scratched her head. “Well, don’t. Now isn’t the time, you’re probably still very shaken up, but for what it’s worth, it’s _way less_ than you would think.”

“Have we met?” Kara looked her up and down again, unsure of herself once more. “And, did you—” She paused and felt silly, closing her eyes. “Did you just save my friend with a gigantic bounce house?” The question was whispered tentatively. The headache already brewing.

“Well, yes? We met three weeks from now. You were crying in the restroom of this bar near my office. I’m a _sucker_ for girls crying in public restrooms,” the woman said, her eyes rolling off to the side as if it was somewhat of a frequency. “How could I not come back, make the phone call, and hire the stunt cushion, honestly?”

“I’ve never met you before,” Kara said with a furrow of the brow, assuring herself of the facts. She would remember this woman, she was definitely someone who seemed hard to forget. It still begged the question of how she found herself here, inflatable stunt cushion in tow, at just the right time.

“Oh no, we’ve not met _before_ ,” the woman clarified, adjusting her purse. “I said three weeks from _now._ That’s when we met for the first time—you wouldn’t remember, of course—it’s not happened for you yet.”

Kara became befuddled and strangely unconcerned with the fact Winn nearly just died. “Are you—” Kara became stuck, pausing for a moment with a small embarrassed laugh. “I heard that Alphas sometimes lose touch with reality a little bit during their time of the month, is this that? Are you like rut-crazy right now? Because we’re _just_ meeting for the first time.”

“You’re meeting me for the first time right now, yes, but for me it's a little more complicated.”

“Oh, you’re a crazy person,” Kara muttered to herself.

“Well I did just save your friend after all and had I not been here at four o’clock this afternoon setting that thing up… well.” She inhaled sharply and fixed a sombre expression. “The aftermath wasn’t pretty. Hense me coming to rescue you all…”

“Okay but what about paradoxes? If I don’t show up in your restroom crying three weeks from now then how do you know to come back here and help us out? Do you see where I’m going with this? Rut-craze, isn’t it becoming the most likely answer to you too?” Kara blinked rapidly, aware that it still offered no explanation as to how her strange saviour knew to come here and save her ass at all.

“You’ve asked me all of this before,” the woman complained and rubbed her forehead. “The short answer is, I don’t know how it works. No, to answer your next question: the good news is that we’re not about to be erased from reality. The mechanics of the universe apparently don’t work that way. Anyways, back to my point, you owe me dinner.” The woman softly prodded her chest with a playful smile.

“Dinner?” Kara scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You know I’ve had some weird propositions from Alphas before, like the time—”

“ _Wonder Woman invited you to live with her in Themyscira._ You told me the first time we met,” the woman repeated as Kara said the words, her manicured brow raised into a point. “Believe me yet?”

Kara gulped. “Maybe enough to get coffee sometime, sure.”

“Coffee is a start? I’m Lena, by the way,” she pushed out a hand and shook Kara’s sweaty palm. “You’ll probably have a sore head tomorrow and feel a little nauseous, playing with temporal reality can be a _mean_ hangover." She grinned.

 

_THE FIRST DATE:_

 

Kara listened intently to her new companion over the little table in the corner of the cafe, and somehow found herself enthralled with each tidbit and, still, in a state of constant disbelief that was unable to be suspended. It was like seeing a psychic or a medium, utterly devouring and simultaneously devoured by the experience; yet still trying to figure out the specifics of the smoke and mirrors, moment to moment, minute to minute.

“So, you can time travel?” Kara asked again for the third time, dumbly.

“You can fly and you don’t age like we do, we’re both time travellers if you think about it,” Lena didn’t miss a beat, slurping a sip of her flat white.

Kara leaned back and rubbed her forehead, because that was definitely not the same thing. “Where I come from we synthesise yellow sunlight differently to humans. There’s a science to it, in a romanticised kind of way, sure.” Kara shrugged.

“It’s kind of ironic if you think about it? I mean, there must be a scientific explanation for what I can do and I am a scientist above all things… but, here we are.” Lena drew a blank and shrugged too. “A mystery.”

“Or a miracle, whichever way you look at the coin?”

“A miracle!” Lena clasped her hands together with a wide eyed grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.”

“Don’t you think hopping backwards and forwards in time is kind of miraculous?”

“Maybe that could be my superhero name? Miraculous?”

“God, no. It’s way too on the nose.”

“Oh, of course, because Supergirl is both demure and subtle.”

“Alright, alright.” Kara narrowed her eyes and shook her head, smirking helplessly. “It’s not what’s in the name, it’s who stands behind the name. That’s what I believe, at least.”

“A pretty thing to believe, I like it.” Lena offered a warm, genuine smile. It made Kara queasy with that fluttering sort of nervousness she felt when she was around people she liked. “Anyway,” Lena continued with a thoughtful stir of her drink. “I don’t think the whole hero thing is for me. Helping people out where I can? Sure. But most of the time jumping backwards and forwards just happens accidentally. A sneeze? Fall of the Berlin Wall. A burp? The 1992 MTV Awards. If I think too hard about a place or time? I’m there. It’s not as easy as I would like.”

“And to what place and time exactly does Lena Luthor think too much about?” Kara grew curious and set her mug down.

“A few good concerts, I guess.”

“Anywhere crazier?”

Well, I’ve ended up in 1889, Austria, on more than several occasions.” Lena fiddled with the little spoon on her saucer.

“Oh god.” Kara wrinkled her brow and placed her mug down, “I don’t know if I’m more horrified that you didn’t kill newborn-Hitler or that you tried?”

“Seventeen times,” Lena said matter of factly, peering off to the side at the chalkboard menu above the barista bar. “That’s how many times I’ve tried to kill Hitler. I’m working on attempt eighteen and it’s going to be a doozy, I’m sure. Do you want to split a piece of lemon meringue by the way?” She turned back with a curious expression.

Kara spluttered on her drink, confused and unsure on how to proceed with the conversation. It wasn’t the first time during this coffee date that Lena had managed to do that. She had a way of remaining startlingly calm and collected while simultaneously saying the most outlandish statements Kara had ever heard another human being utter.

“You’ve tried seventeen times to kill Hitler?” Kara muttered the question in disbelief.

“Me and the universe are in quite the battle of wits about it.”

“Can you explain it like you’re talking to someone who has no idea what you’re talking about?”

“Changing events, affecting history, it’s all relative,” Lena bristled in frustration with a deep huff. “The bigger the change I try to make, the larger the ripples are through time and space. The more the universe tries to preserve itself and kick me right back to here and now.”

“So there’s no multiverse then? It’s not like you’re just jumping from one reality to another?”

“Maybe? I have a theory that time is like a tapestry. You, Kara Danvers, can only ever move across the surface.” Lena gestured with her hand in a fluid swiping motion across the table. “But, for some reason, I can slip through the weaves and thread. Pull on the loose ones here and there. I just can’t unravel too much otherwise...” she trailed off, trying to think of the right words.

“You’ll break the universe, got it,” Kara said with a nod.

“Precisely.”

“So what’s the furthest you’ve travelled backwards or forwards?”

“Spoilers. I’m not going to tell you anything about the fu—”

“Just how far you’ve travelled,” Kara interrupted with a roll of her eyes. “That’s all, _Miraculous._ ”

Lena paused, her eyes becoming deep and all the more beautiful. She smiled and looked away, rubbing her cheek. “A hundred and fifty years either side maybe? That’s my personal best so far but I only managed to last for five minutes or so. The further I go the less time I can stay there. Something tells me I’ll figure out how to go further, for longer. It feels like I’ve already done it sometimes. I can feel it. I just can’t remember it yet.”

The fact that three-hundred years worth of events to wander through seemed unimpressive sat starkly in Kara’s mind. She was well aware of how absurd the thought was. For some reason she imagined time travel to be less… rulesy. It didn’t change how intrigued she was, or, how much fun she was having. She couldn’t even remember the last time she felt the natural pull towards an Alpha so strongly, though, she would hardly go around admitting that to time travelling strangers.

“That was a creative way of telling me you only last for a few minutes by the way,” Kara tried to say with a deadpan tone but then broke into a cackle, drawing the brief attention of nobodies busy staring at their Macbook screens. Their eyes wandered back towards whatever article they were reading as quickly as they had drifted in the first place. But, still, Kara cackled on until Lena was giggling too.

“You’re an idiot,” Lena laughed out the words.

“You seem to like it so far?”

“Well,” Lena said, smirking as she fiddled with her cup. “You’re definitely not like any other Omega I’ve met before. I’ll give you that.”

“Gross.” Kara winced and did the face, “You know we’re not damsels in distress just waiting around for some charming Alpha to come and make us their little women, right? I know so many Omegas like me, better than me even. Doctors, teachers, global intelligence operatives, you name it…” Kara trailed in exasperation and leaned back in her seat, suddenly unsure on what do with herself now that she was done snipping. “Sorry.” She waved her hands apologetically, “I just get fiery when Alphas do the whole, well, _Alpha_ thing.”

“Kara?” Lena placed her cup back down on the saucer with a very serious look.

“Mmhm?”

“I was making reference to the fact that you fly. Oh, and that you shoot laser beams out of your face. I apologise if I didn’t make that clear enough,” Lena said, biting the corners of her smirk poorly. “Besides, I don’t think a nuclear bomb would be enough to make a little woman out of you, would it?”

Kara paused and felt a smile creep up into her cheeks. No, it wouldn’t, she supposed. Nonetheless she couldn’t help but feel like a nuclear bomb was sat right in front of her, ticking away, threatening to turn her world upside down. The most frightening part was that it wasn’t frightening in the slightest. Not even a little bit.

“You’re awfully soft for an Alpha, you know.”

“Oh,” Lena whispered with a smile. “When the mood is right I’m anything but soft.” She looked away and bit her bottom lip to hold back the giggle.

“Gross!” Kara slapped her hand.

Her fingers lingered there, coming back down to rest across Lena’s knuckles. The skin was smooth and warm, and Kara realised all too suddenly that she didn’t want to let go. That she wasn’t sure she could let go if she tried. It felt like she was discovering a new limb, a new piece of herself that she did not realise had been attached to another person this entire time.

“Well now.” Lena turned her hand over and softly squeezed the fingers into her closed palm. “I think I’ll have this coffee date at least three more times if that’s fine by you.”

“You can do that?” Kara whispered, impressed.

“All sorts of things, just you wait and see.”

 

_AN ARGUMENT:_

 

Lena was a whirlwind, or maybe even a full-blown category five tornado. All Kara knew was that one moment her feet were firmly on the ground, and now, suddenly, they were not anymore. So far up in the skies was she that the earth had become nothing but a full stop to a sentence that she never wanted to see the end to. Instead, she prefered commas, dashes, parentheses, everything and anything to keep Lena never more than a connective away.

Nonetheless, the big night—the one where she would finally invite Lena upstairs after the walk home from the restaurant that had become their spot over the last four weeks—had been pushed back and then pushed back some more. The idea of it was savoured and allowed to exist in the impossibleness of perfection. In her deepest worries, Kara worried that she would ruin it, somehow.

However, tonight was the night, certain of it she was. It irked her that unlike Lena she couldn’t get a re-do. It pissed her off to no end that if she wore the wrong perfume, fumbled with her bra, or accidentally cried after sex, that there would be no do-over. One shot was all she had, unlike the _miracle._

Kara fussed with her hair and make-up in the mirror along the hallway, her eyes glancing back to the clock as the hand ticked closer to eight too fast for her liking. There was still so much to do, too much even. She remained unsure on whether to wear this navy dress, or, whether to not wear a dress at all. Then there was the matter of whether to continue cleaning the living room or put on false eyelashes, there was only time for one or the other. _If only she could go back in time,_ she thought to herself.

Suddenly, the door at the bottom of the hallway slammed shut. The sound of furious footsteps marching around her bedroom and things being lumbered about echoed through the closed door. Kara dropped the mascara and inhaled a sharp breath, stalled and dumb for a moment. She was home alone, or, at least she was meant to be. Was this a burglary gone wrong? For the intruder most likely, Kara decided. She picked up the candlestick on the mantelpiece and shuffled down the hall.

“Hello?” She shouted.

“Oh, now you want to talk!” Lena snatched the bedroom door open and stared at her furiously. “I cannot believe you forgot, Kara! I cannot—” Lena stopped, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You know what, I need to calm down.” She turned and marched back inside the room.

Kara blinked and furrowed her brows, following inside the room dumbly. The headache already began to grow.

“Lena, how did you get in here?” Kara mumbled, confused.

The question didn’t please Lena. Not even a little bit. The human nuclear bomb snapped around with a glare. “What the hell are you talking about?” She knitted her brows. “And why the hell are you holding a candlestick?!”

“My apartment. You’re inside of it.” Kara looked around, just to be sure that such was the case.

“ _Your_ apartment?” Lena’s eyes grew wide with fury.

“Yeah, my apartment, Lena. As in the place where I live and expect visitors to, you know, maybe call before they plan on—”

“Wait.” Lena suddenly became calm, her expression clearing into one of clarity. “Where am I right now?” She glanced around.

“My apartment.”

“No,” Lena whispered and shook her head. “I mean _where_ am I? As in, is this right now or did I accidentally jump back?”

“I think it’s right now? For me it’s right now?” Kara became muddled. “I still don’t know how you got in here?”

Lena inhaled and held her breath, her eyes glancing up and down Kara’s figure. She stopped and closed them in realisation, her neck slackening forward. She rubbed the back of her head and chuckled softly to herself.

Her voice dropped to a whisper, “Tonight is the night you wear the black dress and invite me upstairs, isn’t it?” She looked back up, apologetically.

“Oh god!” Kara’s eyes grew wide with startle. “Are you Lena from the future?”

“Bingo.”

“Fuck off!” Kara gasped and covered her mouth, laughing at the absurdity. “Wait, I wear the black dress tonight?” She clarified, narrowing her eyes into a precarious look, “Did you like it?” she murmured quietly.

“I think I’ve already said too much.” Lena winced, “Is this the first time for you that we’ve…you know? Crossed timelines?”

“What do you mean?”

“That past and future versions of me have got muddled for you?”

“I think so?” The headache became blistering. “Listen, I don’t know what is going on but I really don’t have much time. You’re on your way here—which by the way is the weirdest thing I think I’ve ever said—and I really don’t have a lot of time left to get ready!”

“Listen to me,” Lena whispered and smiled softly, suddenly not angry at all anymore. “This is going to happen a lot, bits of me from the future and the past accidentally cropping up where they shouldn’t. It’s really important that you understand that when it happens, we have to keep spoilers to a minimum, okay? Too many spoilers and the stories change, do you understand?”

“Lena I am not kidding, I have maybe twenty minutes to finish getting ready and I do not have time for lectures from ghosts of girlfriend future!”

“Wait, I don’t remember us being girlfriends yet?” Lena paused, thinking about it. She smiled and narrowed her eyes. “She—I mean, me, in this time—is your girlfriend? You love her like that?”  

“I like her, sure.” Kara crossed her arms, grumbling.

“I’m so going to regret this.” Lena pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. She strode forward and grabbed both of Kara’s wrists tightly. “Listen to me, and listen very carefully because this is the _only time_ I’m giving you spoilers. The girl on her way here to see you is coming in a new pair of heels that she’s worrying are too shiny and nail varnish that hasn’t finished drying yet because she wants you to think her hands are pretty when you hold them. She is going to think that you are the most beautiful girl she has ever seen in her entire life and whether you wear the black dress or the blue dress won’t matter, because she won’t even be looking.”

“She won’t?” Kara whispered.

“Not even a little bit.” Lena grinned and bit her bottom lip, “It is so hard being mad with you in the future when I have to see you like this, here,” she added with a furrow of her brows.

“What did I forget in the future that got you so mad?”

“Spoilers.”

“Don’t even!” Kara grimaced and sighed in disappointment. “What is the point in a time travelling girlfriend if you don’t tell past me what I did wrong in the future!”

“Hey,” Lena interrupted with a soft look. “Don’t worry about that. I’m not even mad anymore, not even a little bit.”

“Well then, you should get going, some of us don’t have all the time in the world at our fingertips.”

“Cute line.”

“Here’s another, you’re going to make me late for our date.” Kara already began to walk away back down the hall.

“Yep,” Lena agreed. “Although it makes sense to me now in retrospect why it was you took so long to come downstairs.”

 

_ANNIVERSARY SEX:_

 

The headboard would need replacing tomorrow. The legs of the bed too. The slats of the frame, most likely. In fact, perhaps an entirely new bed it would have to be. Kara groaned and dug her clenching hands into the crumpled bed sheets as the human bomb between her thighs made the dull and constant ache of her heat evaporate into bliss.

“Who’s my pretty little woman?” Lena teased, out of breath and laughing simultaneously as she relentless thrusted her sturdy hips.

“God I hate you,” Kara moaned and slipped her hands behind the back of her neck, clinging and pulling her down.

“No you don’t,” Lena murmured into her throat and pushed as deep as she could to the hilt. “You love me to death.”

“I love you to death,” Kara agreed, mindlessly, whimpering and moaning. The urge to be a soft and small thing for Lena to protect was becoming too overwhelming.

“Baby I don’t think I can hold on for long, you’re clenching so tight on me, I’m going to have to pull out soon…”

“Don’t you dare!” Kara clawed at her lower back.

An eager tongue found her nipple, then a set of teeth, followed by a short sharp suck that left Kara arching and crying. She slammed herself down on Lena’s hips hard enough to leave blueing bruises on her that would awaken by morning. The shame nearly killed Kara the first few times. The sight of Lena limping around the apartment the next day with frozen peas permanently tucked into her sweatpants. The humiliation was scolding. Yet for some strange reason, the act of being bruised and marked, of being beaten down on like a wardrum by overeager hips, only turned Lena on all the more. It made Kara feel slightly better about the entire thing, slowly but surely.

“You’re holding back,” Lena groaned into her ear, reinforcing herself against the beating. “Is that all you’ve got, Supergirl? You scared you’re going to break me?”

“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Kara explained with gritted teeth.

“I know, but I really want you too.” Lena smashed her hips into her with a growl. “Do as your told, be my good girl and put bruises on me so they know I come home to you every night.”

Kara snapped her eyes wide open, the sounds escaping her throat both guttural and raw. She grinded her hips harder, faster, so deeply that she felt the force of it in her guts.

“Oh, that’s what my pretty girl needed,” Lena’s voice awoke with renewed excitement as she weathered the battering. “You better make me ache for days, pretty girl.”

“For days?” Kara shot her a look, a desperate, hungry, unable to remained restrained for much longer, look.

“I want war wounds for you to lick when you’re finished so you better get to work, Supergirl.”

“Thank you!” Kara burst and allowed herself to lose control.

“That’s it! Let me have it baby, let me have you,” Lena grunted, lunging forward for a kiss.

There is a wrath to it, an urgency even. Lena gnashed her teeth and gobbled her bottom lip, her tongue utterly devouring Kara’s mouth. It left Kara breathless and out of her body.

“Cum for me, fast,” Lena demanded and continued to brace herself. “I can’t hold on much longer.”

“Am I hurting you?” Kara stopped suddenly, her fingertips cupping her chin.

“No! I mean I can’t hold on much longer without knotting! Don’t you dare stop right now! Fuck!”

“Do it,” Kara begged and attacked her rocking hips again. “Please do it? Please knot?”

Lena’s eyes grew wide, her nostrils flaring. She was thinking about it too much, Kara could already tell. She put a stop to it right there and then with hands cupping each breast, caressing them, taking every inch of her miracle she could get.

“Please knot inside of me, please,” Kara begged and nibbed her jaw, “I want to have a baby with you. I want you to give me that piece of you,” the most primal parts of her pleaded and soothed her brooding little Alpha.

“I’m cumming!” Lena burst, lunging forward and burying herself as deep as she could.

Kara closed her eyes and felt herself come undone on the knot inside of her that began swell. She cried and allowed herself to become stuck, allowed herself to be made complete in a way she hadn’t felt before as they conquered each other simultaneously.

Kara inhaled and snapped her eyes open when the orgasm finally slipped away, suddenly aware of a immediate dwindle, like a breeze, almost. Lena was nowhere to be seen. Kara pushed up on her elbows and looked around the room, not at all the least bit surprised anymore.

“Leen?” She hollered loudly.

“Sorry!” Lena came crashing through the bedroom door, out of breath. “You made me accidentally jump.”

“Oh for the love of Rao,” Kara whispered to herself and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Where this time?”

Lena paused. “Austria, 1889,” she said, guiltily.

“You are disgusting!” Kara launched a pillow at her in disbelief. “Quick, you better climb back into this bed before I change my mind about licking your wounds.” She giggled.

 

_THE JUMP:_

 

One moment Lena was coming undone, and the next, she was blinking and out of breath in the bathroom. The shower was dripping and the air still misty and warm, escaping out into the cool daylight outside through the puncture wounds of the cracked windows.

“Jesus christ,” she bristled to herself and hunched forward, her hips already aching and her patience well and truly tested. “Where the hell did I end up this time?” she complained to herself and opened the bathroom door.

“Oh!” Kara startled herself and grabbed the doorframe. “I thought you already left for work?” She blinked, looking Lena up and down.

“Oh my,” Lena gasped and covered her mouth.

There was a baby bump. A very big, very real, very nearly to-term baby bump. Lena laughed and felt her eyes widen.

“Are you past or future?” Kara asked with a smile.

“Past, I’m from the past. Well, this is a very big spoiler,” Lena whispered and tucked her hair behind her ears. “How far along are you? Where am I this time?”

“It’s December 2019. Four days from Christmas.” Kara smiled, rubbing her swollen bump.

“Nine months from now. That makes sense.” Lena did the math.

“Wait!” Kara snatched her hands up to her lips and furrowed her brow. “So _this_ is where you accidentally jumped to the night you…” She looked down at her belly, “Well, you know what you did.” She shrugged and smirked.

“Oh god,” Lena sighed and suddenly realised she would need an excuse when she went home. “I can’t tell you about this when I go back, can I?”

“Spoilers. Wouldn’t wanna ruin the story, would we?”

“What am I even going to tell you? I don’t know if I’m going to be able to hide my surprise?” Lena rubbed her jaw.

“Oh trust me,” Kara pushed forward and kissed Lena on the cheek. “You’ll think of some place.”

 

THE BIRTH:

 

As it turns out, childbirth was painful. Kara felt stupid for ever doubting the fact. She was furious with herself, even. While crashing through buildings and absorbing gunfire was nothing more than a mild inconvenience, this, pushing a baby out, was horrific in a way she was utterly ill-prepared for.

Kara paced backwards and forwards beside the hospital bed, aching in places she didn’t know it was possible to ache, chewing on her frustration. The doctors had came and went more than a few times, always promising that she was _nearly_ there, just another centimetre, that the next time they came back would be the final show. Then they would come, and apparently their daughter was quite content where was, and they would leave again. The routine was becoming patience testing for the woman of steel. Alex had long been sent away to the waiting room. Lena next, if she wasn’t careful.

“Married to a scientist and she couldn’t find a damn percocet strong enough for her Kryptonian wife,” Kara grumbled furiously, shooting narrowed eyes at her shrivelling Alpha in the rocking chair.

“Careful where you point those things please,” Lena mumbled.

“If you had been more careful where you pointed _that_ thing!” Kara shouted, pointing between her legs. “Then maybe I wouldn’t have to be consciously trying not to evaporate you right now!”

“You begged me to do it!” Lena reddened.

“Don’t turn this around on me!”

“Alright, fine,” she conceded, getting up and walking over into the kill zone. “My fault I knocked you up. My fault you’re a week overdue. My fault we’re getting the best Christmas present ever.” She smoothed her hands along the curves of Kara’s hips, then pressed a barely-tolerated kiss to the tip of her nose.

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

“That is the most hideous sweater I’ve ever seen,” Kara said, glancing the bright red reindeer sweater up and down with it’s flashing battery-operated nose twinkling away. “I love it. And I hate you.”

“You don’t hate me,” Lena insisted.

“No, I don’t,” Kara sighed and scrunched her face into a pained expression, rubbing her cheek. “Contraction! Oh god, more contractions are happening!” Her eyes snapped wide open, her mouth pulling open into horrified surprise.

“Okay baby, you’re okay, I’ve got you,” Lena said reassuringly, shouldering her to the hospital bed. She released Kara into a pile on the tiny mattress, worried over her with two delicate hands until they were swatted away. “Alright, alright, no touching right now,” she apologised and held her hands up. Kara grumbled and shot her a stern look.

Kara rolled her head with the pain, her eyelids clenched shut so tightly her cheeks bunched up and her nostrils flared. There was a singular long exhale through the mouth. The pain was acute and unforgiving, unwilling to be reasoned with by the likes of lamaze breaths. It would pass quickly, or so she hoped. In the interim all she could do was ride out the storm and thrust out her hand.

“Is that for me?” Lena nodded down to it.

“Yes.”

“Well alright.” Lena took her hand with a smile.

“Tell me a time jump story to take my mind off of things.”

“Do you want the one about the twenty-second attempt again?”

“No, that one’s old. I like the story about Jackie Kennedy.”

“The story about Jackie Kennedy is older!”

“But what a story it is though.”

“What a woman,” Lena said with an impressed whistle. “Don’t you think it’s weird me telling you stories about ex-girlfriends while you’re in labour?”

“Oh come on,” Kara laughed and opened her eyes. The contraction gone with the wind as quickly as it came. “You courted for two weeks.”

“Yeah, I guess I was a real wild child before I figured the time travel thing out, wasn’t I?” Lena tilted her head and smiled with her pearly white teeth. “Oh to be nineteen again with a few hundred years of time and space to play with!”

“Have you ever played with time, with us?” Kara asked suddenly, a little flabbergasted she had never thought to ask that before. “Are there any raging arguments I don’t know about? Any things we messed up that you went back to fix?”

“No,” Lena said honestly. It was an instant relief. “Some things, little things, big things, even terrible things, just can’t be changed. Besides I wouldn’t go back and re-do anything with our relationship, it wouldn’t be real anymore if I did that.”

“You never go and peek into the future?” Kara raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Have you seen her already? If so what is she like?” She looked down and rubbed her unsettled tummy.

“No, not yet. I avoid jumping forward to places where I know we might be… I don’t want to spoil our life and know all the twists and turns, you know?” Lena answered honestly and smoothed her hands over the baby daughter currently getting ready to make her grand entrance to the world. “Life is meant to be lived, after all.”

“Contraction! Bad contraction! Get a nurse!” Kara wailed suddenly.

“Okay, we can ride this out, you heard what the doctors said, they’ll come and see how far along you are in a half hour so we just need too—”

“Nurse! Get a nurse!” Kara jolted forward and grabbed the railing to the bed. “I think she’s coming out!” She glared at Lena. “Go! Now!”

Kara watched Lena disappear before her very eyes. Instantaneously, no more than a second later, doctors were careening into the room. Lena was puffed out and racing behind them, wiping the sweat from her brow.

“Did you just jump backwards five minutes?” Kara mouthed in disbelief.

“What?!” Lena mouthed back defensively. “You said right now!”

The next contraction came immediately after the last. It had Kara screaming, no longer concerned with her wife’s shortcutting in the slightest. Time all of a sudden seemed to be playing fast-forward, doctors were rushing around, gloves being snapped on, too many things happening at once.

“I’m here,” Lena told her steadily, taking her hand. “You can do this, you’ve got this—”

“When she comes do not freak out and jump!” Kara shot her a pointed finger. “I do not want to tell my daughter that when she was born her mother accidentally catapulted herself to wave the Titanic off on its maiden voyage!”

“Well don’t put the idea in my head?!” Lena complained with exasperation.

Another contraction hit. Kara sobbed. Time moved even faster. Too quick for either one of them to grab on to. She pushed as hard as she could for as long as she could, and then pushed some more after that too.

“She’s nearly here,” Lena cried from the bottom of the bed. “Kara she’s right there!”

With one final push she brought another set of screams into the little room, tiny, high-pitched, ringing screams. Kara sagged backwards into the bed, crying and exhausted and overwhelmed and juggling a newborn baby that had been thrusted up on to her chest.

“Hi baby!” She fussed joyfully, tearfully, unbothered with the pain anymore.

The tiny thing on her chest wriggled and squealed, her little arms reaching upwards, strawberry sized fists curling and clenching, two tiny frog legs bending up at the knees until she looked like a very small, very angry, Christmas day turkey. Kara felt herself fall in love. It was instantaneous. It was life-changing.

“Lena look at her!” Kara looked up gleefully at her wife, “Wait.” She looked around. Lena was nowhere to be seen. “Oh Jesus, Lena! I knew this would happen!”

“Sorry!” Lena bursted back into the room, dishevelled and out of breath, crying and unable to hold herself together. “I’m so sorry! It was an accident! I didn’t mean to…” her voice trailed off. “Oh my,” she finally set eyes on the little girl with a gasp. “Hello, little one!”

A kiss was pressed to Kara’s head, a small thank you whispered in her ear, the tiny jostling thing on her chest lifted and joyfully appraised by her mother. Kara swallowed and felt the love of it all consume her.

“Honey,” Kara said after a moment, noticing how the tears persisted, how the crying consumed her wife whole. “Where did you go?” She lifted a worried brow.

“Oh, I can’t even begin to remember,” Lena replied, swaddling her daughter and cradling her to the chest. “Isn’t that right, Lucy? Yes it is, yes it is!” She crooned down. “I am your mother, little one, and I am going to love and protect you always. I’m _never_ going to take my eyes off of you for a single second.”

The feeling that something wasn’t quite as it should be persisted. Kara couldn’t shake it off. She curled her fingers around Lena’s slender wrist and stared at her quaking jaw, then her red-rimmed eyes that were somehow filled with such immense joy and… _sadness._

“Lena what happened?” Kara asked again.

“Look at what we made,” Lena didn’t answer the question, too besotted with the baby in her arms. “Just look at her,” she sniffled.

“You went to wave the Titanic off on her maiden voyage, didn’t you?”

“Something like that, my love.” Lena stared at her for a moment. “I love you so much, Kara. You cannot even begin to understand how much I love you.”

“I love you too, idiot.” Kara smoothed a gentle hand along her wife’s jaw. “Always and forever, until death do us part,” she reminded. 

 

THE SECOND JUMP:

 

One moment Kara was pushing and then their tiny newborn daughter came out with a gush, drawing that first loud squeal as she arrived. Lena opened her eyes and adjusted them to the change of brightness, out of breath, offkeel from the suddenness of the accidental jump, shooting her hands out for leverage against the wall. She was standing in the middle of an unfamiliar hallway. It was cream-coloured and airy, the light crept in from the skylight overhead and illuminated the pictures that hung wall to wall.

“I am so _fucking_ angry with her,” Kara growled bitterly from a room down the hall. “I am so mad with her for leaving me like this and that is by far the worst part!”

“Honey, I know—”

“Surely there is a way to make it right?” Kara demanded loudly. “There has to be ways to fix it?”

“Do **not** let the little one hear you.”

“It’s not right! I shouldn’t have had to bury her!” Kara exploded.

Lena heard muffled crying, inaudible hushed voices talking, the pounding of her own heartbeat. There was a short tug to her sweater sleeve. Lena looked over and drew a breath that refused to be exhaled.

“Hi Momma,” the little girl said, crashing into her thigh for a hug. She dropped her teddy bear and reached her arms upwards. “Up please,” she demanded softly. “I just want to play bank robbers but everyone is sad and so I can’t and it’s very boring,” she explained, fiddling with her fingers.

She had jet black hair and light green eyes. Of course she did, Lena couldn’t help but laugh out loud, utterly awestruck by her daughter. She had her mother’s exact mouth. The shape of it was so _perfectly_ Kara.

“Why are you being so quiet, Momma?” The little girl whispered.

“Hello there.” Lena broke with a shake of the head, picking the little girl up on to the side of her hip. “I don’t know if we have time to play bank robbers but how about later on? Do you think we could then?” She asked with a teary grin.

“I want to be the bad guy. The good guys are boring.”

“Try not to take too much after Uncle Lex, okay?” Lena mumbled off to herself.

“I’ve missed you so much, Momma.” The little girl nuzzled deeply with a shy whisper. “I knew you were just playing hide and seek. Nobody believed me.”

“Junior!” Kara startled by the door with wide eyes, making them both jump in the process. “Oh gosh! Come here, honey, I need you to go and keep Grandma company,” she softened her voice and pushed the door open. “She needs lots of hugs, all of them you can spare, but I need you to save at least three of them for me, alright?”

“I want to stay with my momma,” the little girl said from the crook of Lena’s throat and buried herself even deeper.

“I know you do, honey, but the grown ups _really_ need to talk.” Kara gave Lena a cautionary look.

Lena put her daughter down and watched her scamper off to the sitting room. It left the two of them staring at each other in silence. Kara was middle-aged, if that was even possible. It was still her, and beautiful she remained even with all of that life carved into her, but she also looked tired, like she had been crying, like she had finally found a battle that the woman of steel just wasn’t strong enough to beat, and Lena didn’t know what to do with that information.

“We have another daughter and I give her my name? It’s a little on the nose, don’t you think?” Lena brightened with a wry smirk.

“She’s not ours. You and Lucy are just, well, ringers for each other at this age. I mean you can’t be much older than what? Thirty-three?”

“Twenty-eight. How dare you.”

“Well, for the record, Lena Junior is our granddaughter, and unlike you, I do not hate her.” She glowered furiously.

“You don’t hate me.”

“I do.”

“Not even a little bit.”

“I hate you, really-really this time.” Kara snapped and crossed her arms. She wasn’t kidding.

Lena couldn’t hold it back for much longer, a storm was brewing, an entire hurricane headed right for her, and still she couldn’t step out of the way, stood there like a deer trapped in headlights. Not even if she tried her damndest could she jump back right now and leave this page unturned. Something was very wrong, something terribly spoiler worthy. Lena inhaled and fiddled with the twinkling light up reindeer nose on her jumper.

“Stop lying,” Lena insisted, leaning against the wall with a deep troubled sigh. “You don’t hate me. You couldn’t hate me if you tried.”

“Fine, but believe me, I am trying so hard right now you cannot even fathom it!” Kara threw her hands behind her silvering hair with another glowering snipe.

“Well I love you very much,” Lena whispered and rolled her lips between her teeth. The ache in her heart was palpable. She continued with a shaky voice,  “And whatever it is that has happened I want you to know that the time I’m from? I just watched you bring a baby into the world.” She laughed in disbelief, shaking her head. “Oh Kara, the love I feel for you is endless and violent, it’s stretches from the very top of my throat through my veins and down to my toes, threatening to take over my body and make me do stupid things, moment to moment, everyday. That’s the way I live, constantly, and it is absolutely _nothing_ compared to how much I love that little girl you just gave me. It’s not even a close competition.” She shook her head again with a weak sniffle.

Kara halted and inhaled a shaky breath, her eyes filling with a different sort of tears altogether. They were the kind that were both happy and sad, caught in that terrible in between that left a throat quivering and hot.

“I love you and I’m sorry,” Kara whispered back.

“Was that so hard?”

“I’m not sorry for what I said, not for anything I have ever said.” Kara made the instant distinction. “I’m sorry for what comes next—for you, for us—and if I could keep you trapped in a single chapter and put the story down and just… leave you there? Believe me, I would do it. I would maroon us young and happy, forever.”

“Now wouldn’t that be lovely?” Lena whispered with a soft smile.

Kara looked her up and down quietly for a moment, appraising her jumper. “I always did love that sweater. I guess this is where you jumped to when Lucy was first born, huh?” She smiled a tight, painful smile. Her brows furrowed and she began to cry. “So, I guess that means you’ve always known where we’ve been heading to, Lena.”

“Kara, what has happened?” Lena already knew the answer. Her throat grew tight at the thought. “Where am I right now? What time?”

“It’s April, 2055.”

Lena clenched her eyes shut and ran her teeth over the rim of her lips. “Thirty-five years?” She opened them again. “But you don’t look a day over forty?”

“Miracles, remember?” Kara whispered, wiping her tears. “I could use one if you have it lying around, Lena? I’ve never asked you to go back and change things but I really, really, really need you to change this because I cannot survive it without—”

“Spoilers!” Lena halted her, panicking and taken aback. Kara never just gave up spoilers without a fight. “Just, I think I know what you’re going to say, and I just need a second to come to terms with it.”

Lena reinforced herself with a deep breath. To die was inevitable, but to die with a wife and people who loved her so deeply was a blessing. Slowly, she shook her head and stepped forward, arms crossed over her reindeer nose sweater. To die at sixty-four was hardly a pleasing thought, but it was one that she already doubted could be changed.

“Did I make you happy?” Lena asked softly.

“I know we’ve always said no spoilers but if I told you the worst spoiler of all, could you forgive me?” Kara ignored her. “Because I need you to change it, Lena.” She stepped forward with desperate, aged eyes. “I have never asked you before but I am _pleading_ with you right now, unwrite it from time.”

“Did I make you happy?” Lena slipped her hands around each of her slender wrists, her thumbs rubbing the tiny blue veins.

Kara began to croak, “Listen to me! I need you to go back and fix it! I need you to go back and—”

“If I made you happy for all of the days I had then there isn’t anything to change.”

“She’s dead, Lena,” Kara blurted, unable to hold back the big spoiler. “It’s not you. It’s worse. It’s more than worse. Lucy is gone,” Kara stuttered, rubbing her chin. “And you can bring her back, you’re…you! You brought back Winn all those years ago!”

Lena let go of her wife’s hands and stumbled backwards.

Kara didn’t just.

Lucy isn’t.

These things were not logical, nor right. They could not be.

Lena wretched her hands up to her mouth, she felt the air escape through the puncture wounds of her broken heart, felt her brain refuse the information and try to smother it with a type of reason and logic that wasn’t reasonable or logical at all. Mothers don’t bury their children. That’s not the way the world works. Except, sometimes, apparently, if her shattering heart was anything to go by, if Kara’s  desperate and exhausted expression was evidential, that is exactly what happens.

“What are you—” Lena halted. Her sobs became violent. Her expression horrified. “What do you mean she’s gone? She has just been born? I just caught her in my hands? I don’t even know how much she weighs yet and you’re telling me that she’s, that’s she’s...” The words refused Lena.

“Kara?” a concerned, familiar voice called from the door.

Lena looked over, and for the first time in her entire life, she locked eyes with herself. The woman in front of her was in her mid-sixties. Her jet black hair had silvered and weathered with age, as did the rest of her. There was a slowness to the way she reacted, as if she were unsurprised, as if she had been waiting for this meeting her entire life. The headache became overwhelming, as did the nausea. This was unnatural. She wasn’t supposed to cross timelines with herself. It left Lena feeling faint and dizzy.

“You knew this whole time!” Kara turned and growled at the older woman furiously, her hands becoming clenched fists. “You knew from the very minute she was born where it was she was heading!”

“I did everything to find a cure,” the older woman tried to reason as the door was pulled shut gently behind her. “I spent my entire life trying to stop it, I did everything that could have been done. I swear it to you on all that there is to swear on, Kara.”

“I don’t care!” Kara exploded and snatched her stare between the pair of them. “One of you, fix it! I want my little girl! I shouldn’t have had to bury my daughter! It’s… it’s abhorrent!” She shuddered and became breathless beneath the weight of the burden. “It’s… it’s selfish!”

“You were _always_ going to bury her someday because time is your curse, my love, not mine. And I am so, so, sorry that I cannot take that pain from your heart. All I can do is hurt with you.” The older version of herself trapped a wrestling, grieving, wrangling, hurting godlet right there in her aged arms. “I have been hurting for thirty-five years and I would take a thousand more if I could fix this pain in your heart,” she whispered tenderly.

“She was only thirty-five. It’s not right.” Kara whimpered.

“I know, my love,” the older woman hushed her.

“Tell me how to fix it,” Lena snapped, staring at the pathetic, incapable, sorrowful version of herself that was not enough in this reality to stop all of this. She would do better. She would make this right. She caught the attention she was after, the older woman slowly met her stare. “Give me a place and a time. Just, give me a chance to prevent it! I don’t care what the cost is. I don’t care if I have to break the universe—”

“I know,” the older woman stopped her with an empathetic look. “I’ve stood where you are and I remember it like it was yesterday. I know what it’s like to understand, just for a split second, how it is world killers are born. I know all of it, Lena.”

“I will not become you!” Lena spat, gritting her teeth until it felt like they would burst from her mouth. “Thirty-five years is enough time to do…something!” She became exasperated. “It’s a head start!”

“It’s not enough time for anything.” The older version of herself glared furiously, the pain devouring her whole. She tempered her voice and tucked her chin over the shoulder of the tiny broken godlet crying in her arms. She paused and then whispered, “Thirty-five years is a blink, barely even a single breath, and you will waste every single beautiful moment of it running off into the long future looking for answers that the universe has decided you are not entitled to. Her life will break you, and it will humble you, and most of all it will make the pair of you human in ways that you never could have anticipated until you realise that you never really wanted to be human at all. Not truly, not in the ways that count.”

“I will save my daughter.” Lena refused the truth with an adamant shake of her head. “Just tell me what it is I’m saving her from? I will change time even if I have to break the whole damn thing and put it back together. I don’t care of the cost. I will _force_ time to obey me,” she growled.

“Do you see now, love?” The older woman whispered down to her quiet wife. “All the times I wasn’t there, all the things I missed, do you understand now that she is who I became to try and give you more time with Lucy?”

Kara paused and became guilty as she stared into the eyes of a singular-missioned monster of her own doing. She inhaled and raised her hands over her mouth, shaking her head in despair, suddenly aware and unable to make the truth go away that some things just can’t be fixed and this was one of them.

“I’m so sorry I’ve done this to you,” Kara whispered, glancing between them. “I was the one who put this cross on your back since the day she was born…”

“One of you tell me how to save her!” Lena snapped like a rubber band. “Now isn’t the time for apologies and sentiments. I need information. I need a time. A place. A plan. I need you to tell me every mistake you made so I don’t have to waste time on dead avenues, I know you think time can’t be made right but I have to try, especially for Kara.”

The older version of herself paused and nodded her head as if she were finally admitting defeat. She cleared her throat with a long sigh, “Thirty five years ago I stood exactly where you’re standing right now and begged myself for answers just like you are begging yourself right now... It all gets so terribly confusing, don’t you think?”

Lena hesitated. “Isn’t that a good thing though? All of the previous versions of us must have came up with at least one possible solution between them?” 

“The older version of me that I saw told me so much and yet missed out all the important bits. The truly, truly important bits. So desperate was she for me to unwrite her from time that she forgot to tell me all of the most crucial mistakes to make right. Sometimes the thing that horrifies me the most is the idea that this time loop of us...” She wagged her pointer finger between Lena and herself. “...is infinite. Which means I have failed my wife and daughter an infinite number of times. I won’t let you fail them again, Lena.”

“So you’ll help me make it right?”

“I will give you the power to choose a future for yourself where you do right by them. What you do with it is entirely up to you, Lena.”

Lena nodded and stepped forward. The future version of herself unravelled her arms from her wife and squeezed her hands, reassuring her with small words to take a leap of faith, promising her that she finally understood how to help heal this gaping wound. Then, eventually, she took a step forward too.

“You’re going to go back to that hospital and hold your newborn daughter in your arms, Lena. You’re going to cradle her tight and tell her that you love her and that you’re _always_ going to protect her, that you’re never going to take your eyes off of her for a single second.”

Lena quirked her brow in confusion. “Wait, I thought you said you would—”

The older woman suddenly grabbed her by the biceps tightly, she leaned in with clenched teeth and watering eyes filled with regret. “You’re going to learn how to forgive your wife for giving you this burden. You’re going to learn how to do that quickly, okay? Because life is short and when the big heartbreak comes you’ll wish you had given her more happy memories and you cannot do that while your hating her for things she has yet to do.”

The woman pulled Lena close into her chest, embracing her tightly with solid warm arms that had all the same scars. She continued, “You make sure you tell Lucy a bedtime story every single night, especially the one about the crying girl you found in the restroom of a bar who didn’t believe in miracles. You make sure you’re there _every single night_ to tell her the stories that run in her blood.”

Lena nodded and allowed herself to be held, she allowed herself to be broken, beaten, humbled, and finally, human. She slowly accepted this truth as a knot sewn too deeply into the tapestry of time. She allowed herself to hurt in ways she never could have ever imagined it was possible to hurt, and then she allowed a hand to smooth over her spine like a mother tending a child. The woman in front of her squeezed her tightly until the same heart, made of the same atoms, beated against itself out of rhythm.

The older version of herself carried on speaking too fast, “Teach her how to drive stick yourself because Kara can barely drive an automatic. Always tell her you love her even when she says she hates you. Forgive her quickly when she comes home with boyfriends you hate, the only reason she does it is because she wants your attention. She won’t understand what it is your preoccupied with all the time and you can never let her understand it either, because even in the moments you’re tempted to tell her the big spoiler, even when she incessantly infuriates you by acting like she has all the time in the world to dilly dally around, you must **never ever** tell Lucy or Kara the things you know, do you promise me?”

“I… I promise. I promise I won’t tell them.”

“Good, that’s good. You’re doing really well,” the older woman reassured and cupped her cheeks. “No matter how much you beg her to she will not give you a grandchild sooner. So, when she gets older and has a daughter of her own, and she names that baby after you, and tells you this whole _god awful spiel_ she once heard from her mother about how it isn’t what’s in a name but who stands behind it… just accept it with grace. Put your heartbreak and indignation aside. Even though you know she hasn’t got long left, even though you’re the only one who knows how this all ends, even though the big hurt is so achingly near, let her break your heart with her excitement to be Junior’s mother. Let her damn well nearly kill you with it.”

Lena tearfully nodded. “Alright,” she whispered.

“This final part is the most important of all, Lena, are you listening carefully?”

“Yes.”

“Love your daughter softly as she leaves. She’ll hang on for too long at the end, mainly because her baby is still so small, but also because she loves her mother and doesn’t want to break her heart. So cradle her tight and tell her that you love her and that you’re _always_ going to protect her, that you’re never going to take your eyes off of her for a single second and that it’s alright if she has to go… because you’re both going to be with her the _whole_ time.” The older woman began to weep. “Tell her every single detail about Junior’s wedding day.” She lost her breath to the tears. “Even if you have to make it all up, okay? Make sure she doesn’t miss out on her daughter walking down the aisle, I wish I had done that for her most of all. But the most important thing? Show your wife how to say goodbye. You need to show Kara how to love her softly as she slips away.” The old woman grew stern and squeezed her arms tightly.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to live with this,” Lena admitted. The urge to pour the contents of her stomach out between her shaking knees persisted. “Not really, at least,” she clarified.

“When you go back it will hurt, of course it will hurt.” The older woman clicked her tongue while shaking her head softly, slipping her weathered wrinkled hands into Lena’s. “But she’s going to teach you that wonderful things are possible, Lena. It’s all so scary and sad now, but better to get it out of the way at the beginning, don’t you think?”

Lena straightened herself with a deep breath. The fear absolutely radiated off of her, it punched out like a heater in the midsts of summer. Inside, her pain became acidic and violent. It washed up against her bones and made them sore and barely capable of keeping her upright. But a mother she now was and upright and dependable she would have to be. 

In her deepest beliefs as she said her goodbyes she knew that she would still waste time searching for a way to fix this. She knew that she would get it wrong and make mistakes and end up wishing she could re-do things differently. The realisation occurred to her that this was the most human and fallible she had ever felt in her entire life.

“Go.” The older version of herself finally nodded forward and slipped an arm around her wife. “You go back to your girls and you love them hard, Lena Luthor.”

“I'm going to love them with everything I have,” Lena promised.

She meant it.

 

[Find more stories like this along with my updates ahead of the curve right HERE.](http://theevangelion.tumblr.com)


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